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Healthy Living Unit

The Healthy Living Unit works within the Centre for Health Promotion to help coordinate and deliver the Public Health Agency of Canada’s activities under the the Integrated Pan-Canadian Healthy Living Strategy and the Integrated Strategy on Healthy Living and Chronic Disease.

In 2005, federal/provincial/territorial governments (except Quebec) endorsed the Integrated Pan-Canadian Healthy Living Strategy as a means to achieve a healthy nation by improving overall health outcomes and reducing health disparities. The Government of Canada’s contribution to this strategy is the Integrated Strategy on Healthy Living and Chronic Disease, which was announced in fall 2005. The initiative consists of three pillars: promoting health by addressing the conditions that lead to unhealthy eating, physical inactivity and unhealthy weights; preventing chronic disease through focussed and integrated action on major chronic diseases and their risk factors; and supporting the early detection and management of chronic diseases.

The Healthy Living Unit’s activities fall within the first pillar, and have the following core components:

Healthy Living Fund: providing funding to national projects and, through bilateral agreements with provinces and territories, to support regional and community non-government organizations’ healthy living projects.

Inter-sectoral Healthy Living Network: fostering partnerships and improving collaboration and information exchange among sectors and across jurisdictions in support of healthy living.

Given that physical activity is a shared responsibilities among all levels of government, fostering and maintaining ties with provincial and territorial counterparts is also a key Healthy Living Unit activity.